page_title: Coastal fortifications of Jersey
section_title: Conway's towers
hierarchical_section_title: Coastal fortifications of Jersey / Coastal towers (pre-World War II) / Conway's towers
context_page_description: Jersey is a heavily fortified island with coastal fortifications that date from different periods such as the English Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars, and Nazi Germany's occupation of the Channel Islands. The fortifications include castles, forts, towers, Martello towers, artillery batteries, and seawalls. Not infrequently, fortifications from one period are built on the site of earlier fortifications, or very near them, geography having remained the same even when firepower increased.
  As of 2013, some of the fortifications are museums, or holiday accommodation, private homes, and event and sport venues. Most are under the control of the States of Jersey, Jersey Heritage, the National Trust for Jersey, and the Channel Islands Occupation Society.
context_section_description: On 28 May 1778 the Governor of Jersey, Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway, submitted plans to Lord Weymouth for the construction of 30 coastal towers to forestall, or at least impede French incursions on the island. King George III granted approval and funding on 5 July 1778.
  Work began in 1779, after a failed French landing at St Ouen's Bay on 1 May 1779. Perhaps four had been completed by the time of the Battle of Jersey in 1781, in which however they played no part. Guernsey, which the French did not attack, had built 15 loophole towers between 1778 and 1779.
  Seymour Tower, which replaced an earlier tower on the same spot at La Rocque, was built of granite and was the only square tower. The other 22 towers that Conway had constructed were round.
  Although frequently called Martello towers, the round towers are taller, and they predate the development of true Martello towers. The round towers differ from Martello towers in several ways. The Jersey towers are mostly built with local granite rather than brick, have a slighter batter (taper), and most importantly, originally did not have a cannon on the top platform. (The Guernsey round towers have a strong batter on the ground floor and no machicolations; they too initially did not carry a gun on the top platform.) Later, at the onset of the Napoleonic Wars, both the Jersey and Guernsey towers each received a 12-pounder carronade on a pivot mount for the top platform.
  During the German occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II, the Germans adapted some of the towers to their own purposes. The Germans also destroyed several towers.
  Some of the surviving towers have been painted on the seaward side to serve as daymarks (navigational aids). Archirondel is painted red and white, while other towers are painted white and red, or white, in whole or in part, again, on the seaward side. The order below is counter-clockwise from the north-west corner of the island.
  Numismatics
  The latest Jersey pound note design (2010) has a picture of the St Clement's tower at Le Hocq. This tower also appears on the reverse of the Jersey 1p coin.
caption: Model of the tower
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